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Upland Sandpiper | Bartramia longicauda
Bartrams ruiter | Correlimos batitú
Upland Sandpiper is a wader of dry grassland that rarely comes to water. With its small round head, thin neck and long tail it looks more like a miniature curlew than a sandpiper. It migrates between the prairies of North America and the pampas of South America, passing through the whole guide area in spring and autumn, usually singly or in small groups.
Voice
In flight a liquid, bubbling kwi-pi-pi-pi or pulip-pulip, often when flushed and at night on migration. The whistled display call of the breeding grounds is hardly ever heard in the guide area.
Recording: Stanislas Wroza — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
28–32 cm. Small round head with a large dark eye in a pale face, a long thin neck, a short, straight, yellowish bill with a dark tip, and yellow legs. At rest the tail projects well beyond the wing tips. Upperparts brown with dark centres and pale fringes, giving a scaly pattern; neck and breast buff with fine streaks, flanks with dark chevrons, belly white. The sexes are alike; juveniles are warmer brown and more finely scaled. In flight the dark primaries, dark rump and long tail with barred edges stand out. After landing the bird often holds its wings raised for a moment.
Confusion species
Buff-breasted Sandpiper Calidris subruficollis is smaller, with a shorter neck and tail, a dark bill and plain buff underparts without chevrons; in flight it shows white underwings. Pectoral Sandpiper Calidris melanotos has a sharp border between streaked breast and white belly and a shorter tail. American Golden-Plover Pluvialis dominica has a shorter neck, a dark plover bill and long wings without tail projection.
Habitat
On migration short, dry grassland: savanna, pasture, airfields, golf courses, sports fields and fallow land, sometimes fields with low crops; both in the lowlands and on the plateaus. Walks steadily with jerky head movements, picking insects such as grasshoppers, beetles and caterpillars from the ground. Rarely visits pools or mudflats.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Passage migrant throughout the guide area, from northern Mexico to Panama; seen most in Mexico and northern Central America, scarcer further south. Autumn migration sometimes starts in July, spring migration lasts into May. Outside the guide area the species breeds on prairies and grassland from Alaska and southern Canada to the central United States and winters on the pampas of Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil.
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Large stretches of short grass, such as airfields and freshly mown pasture, are the best places, especially in September and April. The birds often stand upright in the grass and are first noticed by their call when flushed; posts and fences along grassland are sometimes used as lookouts.
Conservation status
Not threatened. In the nineteenth century the species declined sharply through mass hunting, and later through the ploughing of prairies. Loss of grassland on the breeding and wintering grounds remains a threat.
Scientific name
Bartramia longicauda | (Bechstein, 1812)
Bechstein described the species in 1812 as Tringa longicauda; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Bartramia was introduced in 1831 by Lesson. Bartramia honours the American naturalist William Bartram (1739–1823). longicauda combines Latin longus 'long' and cauda 'tail'. The specimen the first description was based on came from North America.